You may not know about Kim Smith, designer/illustrator/president of TCG

1 Growing up, she always wanted to be a “card club lady.”

Kim hates games, almost any kind, and doesn’t know a thing about playing cards. But growing up, that’s what she thought her mother’s job was, and so that’s what she would be, too.

“It wasn’t really the playing of cards that intrigued me; it was more about the beautiful table layout set perfectly before everyone arrived…all the forks spread out in a tapered pattern…all of the napkins stacked neatly, so that you could easily grab one…and the punch cups hanging along the side of the punch bowl evenly spaced out. (Precursor to art directing, perhaps?) But I think my favorite part was, after I went to bed, listening to everyone’s laughter.”

2 Her father was a painter and wallpaper hanger.

And Kim loved to make Barbie doll fashions from discarded wall paper books.

“The wall paper was really stiff to work with, but my Barbie had fashions unlike any other, that’s for sure. It kept me busy for hours on end, and I still love wallpaper. I sure wish I had all of those old books!”

3 Her great uncle had a barbershop where the current TCG office is in East Petersburg.

“My father would bring me to Aunt Blanche to get my bangs cut from time to time, and I always loved that I could get a tootsie pop out of the bottom drawer when I was finished.”

Some things just don’t change, TCG usually has candy near the very spot where those lollipops were kept so many years ago.

You can read more fun facts about the staff at TCG click here and here.

1 She had a little alphabetical fun with her kids’ names.

Julie has four kids who are two years apart: Zach, 27; Elizabeth, 25; Olivia, 23; and Zoe, 21.

“It was pointed out to me when we had Zoe that her name is the first letter of each of the other kids’ names and they thought we planned that, but we did not,” she says. “But we did give Zach and Zoe the same initials on purpose, ZTR.

2 She likes doing upcycle projects.

“I always have some sort of project started in my garage,” she says, “or several at once. I am currently painting a shelf unit for my daughter’s house that she purchased at a yard sale. I also am painting a bedside table that I retrieved from the curbside in my neighborhood. And I have a brass headboard to paint in the line-up, purchased at a used furniture store.”

We’re sure there are many more projects, just waiting in the wings…

3 Around her house, she is “the handyman.”

Julie explains that her dad was “a fix-it guy” and she learned a lot from him.

“I fix things like the toilet, the sink, the kids’ bikes,” she says. “I can put in door locks, replace drywall, paint, put together furniture. I need help with some things, like plumbing, I have a friend who is teaching me. I enjoy fixing things.”

1 He’s a paper sculpture pioneer.

Jeff did his first paper sculpture in art school for a National Library week contest, which he won. His three pieces became available for schools to purchase and hang in the library.

“Looking back, they were pretty ugly,” Jeff recalls. “But at the time, paper sculpture was not well known or being done by anyone. I thought it was my idea and perhaps it was.”

Jeff began doing paper sculptures for “real” around 1990. His first one was a birthday present for Kim (our art director). He estimates he has completed well over a hundred pieces and sold or given away all but a few.

2 He is a PEZ collector of epic proportions.

At a grocery store in Ohio, during a car show many years ago, Jeff spotted his first novelty PEZ candy dispenser, with a Mario Brothers design. Thinking it was “cute,” he made the first purchase of what would become an outsized passion.

“After that trip, I went online to learn more,” he says. “That’s when I discovered Ebay and the world of people who collect these little pieces of plastic. And that’s when my collection started to grow and my wallet started to shrink.”

Jeff now owns “well over 1,000” PEZ, ranging in value from a few cents to $700. He adds current designs and could be tempted to add older ones…maybe.

“I would need to spend $200 or more on those,” he says. “The mortgage seems more important than a 1970’s Mary Poppins PEZ.”

3 He has always wanted to race cars—so he did!

A trying medical issue in 2003 led Jeff to thinking about things he had always wanted to do but, for whatever reason, had not. And that led to his “novice at best” racing adventure.

It took selling his motorcycle and a prized original 1975 MGB to get him on the road. With his wife’s blessing, he then bought a new 2004 Dodge SRT-4. He made a few more purchases…suspension work, tires, shocks, etc….to transform the car into “a big go-kart on steroids.”

“Next, I discovered racing clubs all over the country where anybody with a ‘normal’ road-worthy car can come to national tracks and race,” Jeff explains. “Really, I’m not kidding.”

His racing adventure took off from there.

“My first event was Watkins Glen, the same track that NASCAR uses and it was a blast,” he says. “I was a race car driver! Although, everyone was passing me. Racing, as it turns out, is really hard to do well.”

Jeff went on to race at Pocono raceway twice, two tracks in West Virginia and Watkins Glenn two more times. He stopped three years ago, but says he may do it again. Regardless, he can list “race car driver” on his resume. For real.